First Published: The Call, Vol. 6, No. 6, February 14, 1977.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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Luxemburg is the last country to be examined in The Call’s series of articles on the Marxist-Leninist movement in Europe. In a forthcoming issue we will sum up the series.
Luxemburg is a small country of less than 500,000 people situated in Western Europe on the borders of France, Belgium and Germany.
It is nonetheless an object of contention between the two superpowers, U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism, and is seriously threatened by the danger of a new world war. Luxemburg has become well-known for the numerous CIA and KGB agents, who have attempted to use it as a base of operations in Europe.
Luxemburg is also a highly industrialized country, dominated by large steel factories. In recent years, it has become a center for the giant banks of international finance capital. Since World War II, large numbers of unemployed Italian and Portuguese workers have immigrated there, adding their forces to the traditional militancy of the Luxemburg working people.
Recent examples of the intense class struggle in Luxemburg include the October 1974 general strike of 30,000 workers against the assault on their living standards by the capitalist economic crisis. That same year, a major struggle was launched by peasants against the devastation of the country side by nuclear reactor plants. As many as 10,000 people joined these rural protests.
An important force in both of these struggles was the Communist League of Luxemburg (KBL). Born in the early 1970s in the struggle against modern revisionism, the KBL represents today the growing movement of Marxist-Leninists in this country. The Call recently interviewed Charles Doerner, member of the KBL’s Political Bureau and editor of Red Flag, newspaper of the KBL.
“Our task is to go among the workers,“ explained Doerner, “and to develop their political class consciousness on the question of who are their friends and who are their enemies, both nationally and internationally. Within our country, the class struggle is the key link, and our principal enemy is the bourgeoisie.
“But due to the nature of our country and its size,” he continued, “this is not a simple task.”
Doerner explained that the bourgeoisie consists of several different groups. The bourgeoisie of the Luxemburg nationality itself consists mainly of small and medium-sized capitalists, and is not the dominant force in the country. Far more powerful are the Belgian-French interests which control the big steel mills through a monopoly grouping known as ARBED. Other influential interests in Luxemburg include big U.S. imperialist corporations and groupings of financiers from other European countries.
As a result of recent elections, the more conservative Catholic Party was forced out of power and a social-democratic type of coalition has replaced it in the government. The coalition includes the Socialist Workers Party (based mainly among the trade union bureaucrats) and the Democratic Party (based among the Luxemburg businessmen).
Although the Socialist Workers Party has a “populist” image, Doerner said that it is really the tool of the steel monopolists. The capitalists also use the cover of this “workers’ party” to attack the peasants and other strata of the population. The Socialist Workers Party, for example, has promoted a plan of “modernization” and “rationalization” which means ruin for the peasantry.
The revisionist Communist Party, of Luxemburg (KPL) plays right along with this plan, explained the KBL. It, too, has a base among a section of the steel workers and holds some municipal posts in the smaller towns. Its main aim is to enter into a class-collaborationist ruling coalition with the social-democrats.
“In building the party in our country,” Doerner said, “we combine propaganda and agitation and carry out mass action as well. In the mobilization for the general strike, we formed a contingent of some 500 workers and activists. In the peasant movement, we organized mass meetings in the villages to popularize the lessons of the people’s communes in China. And we have held demonstrations to defend the rights of the immigrant workers and oppose chauvinist attacks on them.”
Turning to the international situation, Doerner explained that the KBL stressed the importance of preparing for war. “One difficulty we must overcome is developing our secret work in such a small country, In past wars, Luxemburg was occupied by foreign troops, and many communists were wiped out. In 1918-20, both French and German troops were used to crush workers’ rebellions here. The Nazis were even worse.”
“We agree with Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line of the ’three worlds,’ ” explained the KBL. “The two main enemies are the U.S. and the USSR. The main force against them is the third world. But for us, the main problem in this regard is: how to win over the second world? It is complicated because many second world countries are themselves imperialists. That is why we call for an international united front against imperialism, colonialism and hegemonism, and not against the two superpowers alone. ”
“As for the relation between the super-powers,” the KBL continued, “we think the USSR is more dangerous. This is because it is a rising newcomer among the imperialists and because it wears a ’socialist’ mask that can fool some of the workers. We obviously fight the U.S. imperialists. They are here in our country, and we are against all lines of compromise with U.S. imperialism. But in our propaganda, we have to place even more emphasis on the Soviet social-imperialists precisely in order to unmask them.”
The KBL is opposed.to both NATO and the Warsaw Pact and raises the demand that Luxemburg should get out of NATO. Luxemburg’s own armed forces – the police, gendarmerie and army combined – only amount to about 1,000 troops. But whenever the bourgeoisie has been in a decisive clash with the workers, it has not hesitated to call in the troops of foreign capitalists to suppress the masses.
“The people must arm and rely on themselves to make revolution,” said the KBL. “They must form a people’s army under the leadership of the party.”
The situation with the European Economic Community (EEC), termed “Eurocrats” by the KBL, is more complex than that of NATO. “It has two sides to it,” stated the KBL. “On one hand, the unity of the European bourgeoisie is directed against the working class. This we have to fight. On the other hand, the EEC to a certain extent opposes the ambitions of the two superpowers. This can be useful to the working class.”
The KBL has carried out a two-line struggle on these questions within its ranks. At one point, more than a year ago, a small faction formed which pushed a line asserting that NATO should not be opposed, that West German imperialism was an “ally” against Soviet social-imperialism, and that the class struggle in Luxemburg should not be directed at the bourgeoisie. This handful was eventually expelled.
An outstanding feature of the KBL and the revolutionary movement in Luxemburg is its proletarian internationalism. The cadres who talked with The Cal! had a broad knowledge of international affairs and a firm stand on the unity of the workers and communists of all countries. Concretely, this was evident on the language question. The KBL’s propaganda and agitation appear in French, German and Portuguese, as well in their own Luxemburgese. The cadre are also multilingual, often speaking two or three languages in addition to their own.
The KBL was quite modest about this achievement. “We are from a small country. Still, we will do our best to carry out our tasks as a component part of the world-wide revolutionary struggle.”